


tradition

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: She closed her eyes the moment it happened, and sank into it completely. It was…warm. Slightly wet. Tinged with a staggered exhale of all the feelings they’d held in for…for years. Their first kiss was…was…Almost a whole week ago.(A highschool genderswap au!)





	tradition

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying to move all my tumblr HCs onto ao3, and i discovered i'd never even posted this full fic;;
> 
> this was a birthday gift for nei, originally written october 2018. my full note:
>
>> tg is over now and i’m still finding ways to recover from it, but i remain incredibly thankful for my experiences reading it and especially for all the good stories and memories i’ve made with @neimana ♡ this is my birthday gift to her! ♡♡
>> 
>> this is a fic based off her genderswap/school au, which i hilariously can’t find any links to, but trust me that the concept exists and the art nei has made for it is SO. CUTE… ////// i truly swoon at that kirishima-kun.
>> 
>> once again nei~~ thank you and best wishes for your next year!! 💞💖❤️💞💖❤️💞💖❤️

Their first kiss — was —

A surprise. Kirishima-kun, suddenly leaning over her — their eyes meeting — his gaze not the usual crystal, but instead so soft she felt her chest bruise. His hands rested, gently, on her hands.

She closed her eyes the moment it happened, and sank into it completely. It was…warm. Slightly wet. Tinged with a staggered exhale of all the feelings they’d held in for…for years. Their first kiss was…was…

Almost a whole week ago.

:::

It’s not like she wants to be kissing…like…all the time. But since that last time, she’s been — just — …thinking about it a lot. And even though they kissed a week ago, nothing else really seems to have changed between the two of them. They greet each other in the morning before class — they stay after school in the library to study — they walk together to attend their part-time cafe shifts, and then give each other one last farewell at the train station.

Nothing has changed. And yet, everything has. Didn’t they used to talk a lot more? Didn’t Kirishima used to berate and complain about everything? Why is he so quiet now? There are times he seems to be staring at her, and about to say something — but — _there_, there he does it again. The moment Kaneki turns to him, he looks away. Presently, he rests his head on his desk, on his crooked arm.

Maybe he didn’t like kissing her after all. Kaneki tries and fails to swallow down the sudden fear swelling in her throat. She was in such a warm daze immediately afterward that she can’t really remember his reaction to it all, can’t really remember if his expression as he held her after was calm or content, or if at that time he was actually already sick of her and the fact they had stopped kissing because the salt of Kaneki’s own tears had interrupted them.

_”Why…are you crying?”_

_”W-why…? I…”_

Kaneki stares down at her hand, which is extremely close to Kirishima’s hand. The library is quiet, and a quick glance confirms no one is paying any attention to them. So if she reached out…just a little…just to touch her hand to his, just for a moment —

She lunges before she can think any more about it — just as Kirishima’s hand moves, to turn the page of his book. Kaneki’s hand drops on the table with a smack. Kirishima blinks; heads crane; Kaneki straightens, feeling her face turn red.

“S-sorry!” she says, and then she winces, and repeats it in a whisper: “Sorry. Sorry.”

Attention turns away from them, eventually, probably. She is too embarrassed to confirm. But she can tell Kirishima is staring at her, waiting.

“Are you alright?” he asks, finally.

“Yes,” Kaneki replies. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

_I’m so stupid. And tiring._

“Sorry,” she says again, for good measure.

She stares down into her book, not trusting herself to look up. After a moment, she feels something warm. Kirishima’s hand — settling on hers.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Kirishima says. He turns her hand over, rests his fingertips in her open palm. The characters on the page blur suddenly. Kaneki opens her mouth.

“Sor…” This time, she catches herself. She sighs.

“Are you alright?” Kirishima asks again, and this time Kaneki admits it, blurts it, helplessly: “I just like you so much.”

“O-oh,” Kirishima says. His hand curls up a bit, but honesty is too great a relief, and now Kaneki finds she can’t stop.

“I was worried about why we haven’t really — done _that_ since last week,” Kaneki continues, “And I wanted to apologize to you — if I wasn’t that good — I mean, it was my first time, so I — I didn’t really know — and I know I cried a little but —”

“Kaneki,” Kirishima mutters, “y-you’re — too loud —”

“Wait, I just need to say — I think I was only crying because I had — so many feelings about it — good feelings. I mean, not because it hurt or because I hated doing it myself, it just — all I want to say is, it wasn’t your fault at all so if you thought that — I hope you didn’t, but just in case — basically, if you want to stop all this between us, I” — she feels her eyes start to sting again — “I guess I would be okay with it but —”

“What?” Kirishima hisses. “You would be okay with it if we broke up? Is that what you’re saying to me?”

He spoke at the usual volume. This time, everyone around them remains determinedly staring at their textbooks.

Kaneki swallows.

“No,” she says. “I…I wouldn’t.”

Kirishima stares at her. She stares back.

Kirishima sighs.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Kaneki says finally.

“Where?”

“I…I don’t know. Just…somewhere.” She closes her book. She steels herself, and asks it, firmly: “W-will…you come with me?”

He could easily say “no.”

_No._

_You’re too much._

_I’m done._

“Okay,” he says.

:::

In the end, they don’t go too far. Kirishima is the one that suggests it: the rooftop garden, of course.

_“There’s something I want to show you anyway.”_

There’s a secluded spot that receives shade and light at all the right parts of the day, and now, in late summer, the breezes it gets are pleasantly cool. Kaneki smiles, slightly, when they get there.

“You know, the first time I saw you, you were up here. Walking to this spot.” Kaneki points at the library windows across the courtyard as they make their way around the wall. “I was sitting right there. When I saw you I thought maybe I was just imagining things, since you can’t really see anyone if they’re sitting down.”

“The first time I saw you I was up here too,” Kirishima says as they settle in.

“Wh…really?”

“Yeah, down in that library. Rize and Tsukiyama would be searching all over for you and never figured out that all you ever did every day was hide out in there.”

Kaneki grimaces. “Kind of pathetic, huh?”

“No,” Kirishima says. “It’s nice in there. When someone isn’t talking really loudly about embarrassing things, anyway.”

“Haha…I guess so.”

She smiles at the ground. They are side by side. There’s enough room for both of them to sit without touching, but their elbows nudge together, and Kaneki waits a bit, and Kirishima doesn’t pull away. For a while they just sit, in comfortable silence. Kaneki feels her heart speed up, and then slow. This is fine. This is…nice.

“I haven’t really seen Rize-san or Tsukiyama-san recently,” Kaneki says thoughtfully, and Kirishima grimaces.

“They’re just biding their time. Actually…actually, that’s what I…kind of wanted to talk to you about.”

He quiets, opens his mouth, then closes it again, purses it into an uncomfortable frown. It’s frankly the kind of expression Kaneki has seen him make a lot in the past week, and though her initial instinct is a sort of panic — _“You…want to break up, don’t you?”_ — this time, she catches it.

_That isn’t it._

_This is Kirishima-kun we’re talking about here._ Kirishima-kun who taught her, in his own way, how to make coffee. How to survive in this school. Kirishima-kun, who went after her when she was in trouble. Who waited for her for so long after she left him behind, and still took her back.

“You can tell me,” she says, instead, encouragingly. “It’s okay.”

He looks at her, and sighs. Not from frustration, but relief.

“Okay,” he says.

:::

_“At this school there’s a…a kind of…tradition.”_

It would be a lie to say Kaneki had never noticed it before. There was the time she had accidentally burst in on Nishio-senpai — and back then in the chapel, she had noticed it on Nishino-senpai, too — patches of darkened skin — kiss marks. It seemed embarrassing to notice them at the time, like witnessing something private. Kaneki never would have guessed they’d have any particular meaning, much less something as deep as _This person is claimed._

_This person is mine._

“If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine,” Kirishima says quickly, but Kaneki breaks from her reverie to shake her head.

“N-no — no, I — I want to.” She feels her face warm. “I…really want to. I’ve just…never done anything like that before.”

“I think you just sort of…suck on it. Hard.” Kirishima coughs. “Not that I’ve done it either.”

“I want to do it,” Kaneki repeats firmly. “I — I can do it first. If you want.”

“…alright.”

They hesitate, and then shuffle a bit, so they face each other. Kaneki waits, and then, realizing that she’s waiting, Kirishima fumbles quickly with his shirt, attempting to tug his collar over the space of his shoulder. There’s no way he can expose any skin doing this, and when he realizes it, he grimaces and loosens his tie. After it falls, he makes his way through the shirt buttons — loosening them one by one — all the way down to his belly.

The first sight of his skin makes Kaneki’s face even warmer. Kirishima-kun…well, she knew he was a pretty strong guy from experience, but he — definitely also — kind of — looks it. Muscles-wise, that is. To her surprise there’s a little marking on the right side of his chest, a little spot she never could have guessed the existence of, which she reaches out and touches before she can quite stop herself. He is…firm.

Kaneki clears her throat. “Okay…okay. Now?”

“Sure,” Kirishima mumbles. “Any time.”

It takes another minute or so for them to shuffle around until she has a position that feels the most comfortable — then another short while for her to move his shirt over and expose a stretch of skin. He tilts his head over to give her a better angle to it, and his bangs shift; when she glances at him she can see him watching her with both eyes, waiting. She smooths her hand on him.

“Here…?”

“Yeah…sure.”

Kaneki wets her lips, and then leans. Even though she’s already kissed him, there’s something different and — and strangely more intimate about kissing him somewhere that’s not his mouth. As soon as she makes contact he jumps, a bit — and his skin feels warmer than she expected — and when she feels brave enough to lean into it, to press her tongue to him, she feels his body shiver in a way that makes it much easier to kiss him a second time, and then a third, and a fourth.

She would think someone like Kirishima-kun wouldn’t like this kind of messing around — she almost expects him to say something like, _Just get on with it already_ — but he doesn’t. He sighs, and her chest swells, and she decides to do it, right then — her lips pursing — and then, after a deep exhale, _suck._

His body shudders under her, again. She hears him exhale, slow. Their hands fumble against one another and grip messily, and Kaneki isn’t sure how long it’s supposed to take so she keeps going, sucking fervently until Kirishima whispers “That’s probably enough.”

She leans back to survey, and uses the back of her hand to wipe the saliva from her mouth, and then from the skin at the base of his neck. It’s kind of pinkish there.

“Is that…alright? It doesn’t look…very dark. Was I not doing it hard enough?”

“I think it’s fine.” He prods it gingerly. “I think it will get darker after a minute or two.”

“Oh. It didn’t…hurt, did it?”

“No. It actually felt…” He coughs. “No, it didn’t hurt at all. I’ll do you now?”

“Y-yeah! Yeah.”

She waits. He waits.

“Unbutton your shirt,” Kirishima says. “Um, just a little, probably.”

“Right! Right.” She fumbles hastily, undoing the bow of her necktie and casting it aside, then making quick work of the top button of her uniform. She’s only finished the second button when she realizes just how much of herself she’ll be exposing. Her face is probably vivid, now.

“You…don’t need to go much farther than that,” Kirishima murmurs. His hand reaches, cradling her head gently, turning it aside. He moves her shirt aside, carefully, then rubs his finger on a spot at the base of her neck that suddenly feels incredibly sensitive. “I can do it right there.”

_Okay,_ Kaneki tries to say, but she doesn’t quite have the breath for it. Kirishima shifts, and she shifts to meet him — her back pushes up against the wall. She looks up to him in surprise and he kisses her mouth — full, gentle, encompassing — and she wilts. Her hands move up against his chest, not to push him away but to feel just a little more of him, and the two of them stay that way a while, kissing, their bodies moving on their own, shifting and pressing and interlocking, to find the best way to be closest to each other. In the haze of things Kaneki only barely notices Kirishima stroking her face with his thumb, then placing it against her mouth to occupy her while he finally moves elsewhere — kissing her cheek, her chin, her quivering throat — making his way steadily, carefully down.

When he gets to the decided spot, he pauses, and when he stamps a kiss there, Kaneki’s hand — resting on his back, she realizes — grips him.

“It’s — ticklish,” Kaneki gasps in explanation, and Kirishima watches her carefully. He kisses her again; she grips again. This time her legs stiffen, all the way down to her toes.

“You’re not laughing.”

“It’s…it’s really ticklish, seriously.”

“Then should I stop?”

“Don’t,” Kaneki says, and finds herself adding, “please,” and she feels little stars in her belly when Kirishima smiles at her warmly, and presses his mouth to her again, this time with a light flick of his tongue that makes her release a tiny, embarrassing sound. Before Kaneki can apologize for it, Kirishima takes her hand, and squeezes, and then, finally, sucks.

“O-oh —”

Whatever sensation she was expecting, it wasn’t — quite — like this. She buries her head against Kirishima’s neck, clutches him, feels him. He sucks for only a handful of seconds before releasing to lay a kiss on her, and then repeats, and repeats — and what moves her isn’t so much the sensation of him kissing her itself as it is the thrum of his fast pulse against her brow — his ragged breathing in her hair — the tiny wet noise of his mouth. He is everything to her in this moment, he engulfs her totally, and his hazy expression and licked lips tells her that for him, right now, there is only her.

“Crying again?” he asks. His gaze is warm. Kaneki swipes at her eyes, and realizes he’s right.

“Ah…haha. I guess so.”

“It didn’t hurt, did it?”

“No…it actually felt…” Kaneki rubs her cheeks. “It didn’t hurt at all.”

“Good,” Kirishima says. “Because I…might have…done it a little too much.”

The pink spots go almost halfway up her neck. Later, Kirishima waits outside while she blushes at herself in the bathroom mirror, trying and failing to adjust her uniform so that everything is all covered up.

_Though,_ she can’t help thinking, _if Rize-san and Tsukiyama-san happen to see it…it wouldn’t be…_that _bad._

The marks probably would have gotten even more extensive if they hadn’t been interrupted by a couple droplets of rain. It’s coming down hard by the time they make it to the school’s front gate, and Kaneki opens her umbrella up, and the two of them head out to the cafe.

“I’ll do better next time,” Kirishima says.

“Next…time?”

“Yeah. Well, they fade, so…so you have to redo them once in a while.”

“Oh. Once in a while…like a couple of days?”

“More like a couple of weeks.”

“Oh.” They pause at a stoplight. Kaneki shifts her weight from foot to foot, then clears her throat.

“Maybe we should check up on them again tomorrow?” she asks. “Just…in case. I mean…I wouldn’t want them to go away too soon.”

Kirishima considers.

“Maybe we can even check after work today,” he agrees.

In the end, the day is slow enough that they find time to check about a dozen times before their shift is over. Afterward, heading to the staff room to change, both of them complain properly about the pain of maintenance before they press against each other again. This time Kaneki swallows, and then turns her head in the other direction, shyly exposing the side of her throat still uncovered in pink — and Kirishima flushes, and obliges.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! ♡


End file.
